[TR] Sloan Peak - West Face Variation 7/8/2012

[BootsandPants]

Trip: Sloan Peak - West Face Variation

 

Date: 7/8/2012

 

Trip Report:

Evelyne, Jeff, Cody and myself gave the west face of Sloan a go last weekend. While wanting to do it car to car in a day, Cody wasn't due back from a sailing trip until sometime Friday night, so we decided to take it easy, hike in Saturday evening, get a good night's sleep and start the climbing early on Sunday.

 

The road to the Bedal creek TH is for the most part clear, although the brush is starting to encroach. There was a large downed tree a mile up the road, so we parked there and walked the road the rest of the way to the TH. It's only about a 10 min walk. We left the car around 1500.

 

The trail is mostly snow free through the forest. It was HOT on the way in Saturday afternoon. No breeze, about 77F and a fair amount of humidity made the going a bit slower than usual as we sweltered in our own sweat. I kept trying to remind myself that the heat was much worse everywhere else right now, but it wasn't much comfort in the afternoon sun. After an hour or so in the sweatbox, we started up the creek bed thankful for some open terrain, a nice source of water, and a breeze! We hit some consistent snow about 15 mins up the creek which allowed us to make good time up to the base of the face. The snow is melting out fast though and I wouldn't be surprised if it was all gone in a week or two. A traverse over heather and snow to a small bivy area at about 5.8k ft and we were glad to be done moving for the day despite the short approach. It was 1830 when we made camp, and we were treated to a wonderful sunset over the north cascades while we ate some dinner. In bed by 2200.

 

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Traversing the last bit to camp

 

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Route from camp

 

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Puuuurty

 

We started up the face the next morning at 530. The beta we had from some friends was great, however they had done the climb much later in the year and we had to get a bit creative with our route. Getting to the first ledge required a 30ft climb up a loose, unprotectable moss filled crack, instead of the easily climbed chimney due to a waterfall running down it. Getting up to the second ledge required pitching out a section of fairly fun 5.7 instead of an easy scramble, again due to a waterfall (see the trend?).

 

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Approximate way to the base of the climb

 

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First roped dirty pitch, a prequil of things to come

 

Finally at the base of the climb, we continued up encountering more water, wetness and loose rock than you can shake a stick at. We stayed far to the left of the gully proper for most of the climb, only being forced into the water and snow once for a belay. It was cold and wet, and we were in the shade; a perfect juxtaposition to the heat of the previous day. Cody and I swung leads and picked our way up the face fairly well given the conditions and what we had to work with. There wasn't a whole lot of pro around, so it was pretty common to place 3-4 pieces per pitch. Seems a little sketchball, but the climbing was casual and had no overtly difficult sections. We also trundled quite a lot of loose rock that was left on route during the winter. Hopefully it is a bit safer now for anyone else following up this year.

 

Soon we were staring at the top of the gully as it narrowed with one pitch left. It was my lead, so I took off, kicked steps gingerly over a snowbridge and scooted up and out of the gully to the left finish. Toping out in the sun was a nice treat as it warmed my cold feet to the point where I could feel them again. Cody quickly followed, and we both lounged in the sun as Evelyne and Jeff finished up the route.

 

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Last pitch, exiting the oozing gully

 

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Summit pose fail

 

After slipping out of our rock shoes, we took off scrambling towards the summit. There was still quite a lot of snow on the upper mountain, so having an ice axe was handy. On the summit enjoying the views at 1230. Upon signing the summit register I noticed that we were the first group up Sloan this year, unless other parties didn't sign. Regardless, we thought it was kind of cool to be the first one up in 2012.

 

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Cody and Jeff on the summit

 

We started down at 1300 and meandered down the corkscrew route. Upon looking at the south face descent route, we had serious doubts that it would go. Large moats, and tons of snow made us very weary of finding any sort of rappel anchors down there, so we made the decision to rap the route since we knew we could make it go and it would be fairly straightforward with little unknowns.

 

We were wrong about the straightforwardness of rapping the route though. While most of the anchors were pretty good, it always took longer than we expected to find those good anchors, adding time to the descent. The waterfalls didn't help too much either, wetting everything around and making it hard to keep your footing while on the descent. After 6 raps, we were back on downclimbable terrain and we cruised back to camp. Packed up and on the trail at 1745.

 

Other than witnessing a massive rock and ice fall coming off the NW face and dodging a few falling massive boulders, the descent was rather uneventful. Boot skied down the snow and hoofed it back to the car by 2100.

 

While not an overly pleasant or amazing quality climb, it was a fun, technical route to get to the top of a cool peak. I'd much rather climb it this way than slog the corkscrew. Plus, gorgeous weather and fun people with some climbing thrown into the mix, you can't ask for much more than that!

 

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P.S. Thanks to Evelyne for the pictures. They're all her's, I forgot my camera!

 

Gear Notes:

stoppers, singles to 2", a bunch of bail slings!

 

Approach Notes:

Road blocked by a large tree about 10mins from the TH

[Brandon Kotulka]

nice work guys. did you guys make it over to the south east side with the huge ledges to take a look? cool area to be in and take in the views.

[wayne]

Nice report, thanks.

[SoundSummiter]

I remember that we descended those ledges on the south east side by a series of gullies. They were a bit wet even in August. This part of the trip probably took the most route finding. We had to do a double rope rap to get off the last one - just barely got us over the moat. Nice work on getting the climb in with less than perfect conditions!

[TwoFortyJeff]

Leading with wet climbing shoes. Check that one off the bucket list.

[Alex]

the descent off the corkscrew looks like it won't go all the way down, but it does. barely. i remember that part of the route being the most unknown, but it didnt take overly long...